No Ordinary Judgment by Nonie Sharp

Book Awards

Shortlisted for Centre for Australian Cultural Studies National Award 1996.

Book Description

This is the inside story of the Mabo case, a unique court drama where rights and interests previously unknown to Anglo-Australian law came to be recognised by the High Court of Australia. In far north-east Australia lie the homelands of the Meriam, a dynamic seafaring, fishing and gardening people. They explained in court, often eloquently, how their 'cultural way' retains a fidelity to distinctive principles while also accommodating new ideas and techniques. In the name of Meriam law they also defended their right to land passed between generations by the spoken word. Their right to land carries with it a moral and practical responsibility to other Meriam and to the land itself. Meriam culture, often diminished in the hearing of evidence, has an original contribution to make to future Meriam, to the rest of Australia and to the world. In exploring the role of native title in the reshaping of Australian identity, some of the deeper questions of cultural diversity and self-determination are identified.

Books By Author Nonie Sharp

Explores four meanings of the Tagai myth in the life of the Islanders since the mid-nineteenth century. This title examines the social issues involved in the historic Mabo case and to give a picture of the fabric of life of the Mariam people of the Murray Islands, a subgroup of the Torres Strait Islanders.

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